


Brief Mortality

by Megafowl



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Non-Binary Joshua, Pre-Canon, Snapshots, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 05:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8566648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megafowl/pseuds/Megafowl
Summary: Joshua visits the cafe, and visits, and visits. They're a little shit, but Hanekoma takes a liking to them anyway.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So everyone's written a Joshua origin story, I know, I'm not being original here, but just, hear me out.

It’s around noon when Hanekoma notices it; a little thought louder maybe than a breath or a bare footstep, but there nonetheless. Just barely more than background noise for his artwork.

 _It’s those people again,_ the little thought goes, _the ones with wings._

Not too uncommon, sure, but when he tugs the thought out just a little bit, on a whim, the images are clear and solid. Interesting. The angel makes a mental note of the child they belong to, and goes about mixing his paints.

* * *

When he isn’t in the shop, Hanekoma trades his oils and pastels in for spray paint and subterfuge. It’s a modern sort of statement, and he loves leaving a mark on the city as if he were alive. He feels almost human at the end of a piece, hands messy and vibrantly stained.

* * *

The child finds him; of course they do, they were called; and precisely trails a finger through the still-drying paint of Hanekoma’s newest work, smudging the command code hidden in the river that framed the piece.

“Hey!” Hanekoma protests, rushing over with his brush. “I just finished that!”

“It looks better this way,” the kid giggles. The brat moves in such a soft, non-threatening manner that it can’t be anything but suspicious. “See? I fixed it for you.”

Hanekoma kind of likes the little hellion already.

* * *

The child shows up with bruises, scrapes, cuts. Hanekoma doesn’t ask, but Joshua sees him looking and grins with his split lip and confesses “the other kids don’t like me.”

There is pride in the statement, and Hanekoma can guess that the dislike is mutual.

* * *

Joshua brings a box of matches into the shop, just once. They light one, watching it burn quickly down the shaft towards unprotected fingers.

“Kiddo!” Hanekoma yells, diving for the match and knocking it to the floor. He stomps it out frantically.

Joshua looks at him, expressionless, and strikes another.

* * *

Sometimes a Player would wander into the shop. He knew Josh could tell; the air around the Player being frazzled, disjointed. They’d watch them carefully, occasionally making polite, calm conversation, eyes following as they left the shop.

He brings it up one day, to the backdrop of a light rain on the storefront.

“It’s a Game,” he says, and maybe he shouldn’t bring it up but he can see a plan for this kid, if all the pieces line up he can see the child rewriting the UG like dominoes laid out before them into an endless sky.

* * *

The kid’s eyes are all ambition, any false innocence gone in the face of this all-consuming curiosity. “So the point,” they say, brushing lipgloss over their mouth, “isn’t actually killing people?”

“Right,” Hanekoma replies, watching Josh apply faint traces of makeup. It’s a novelty right now, that they have their own beauty products kept safe in the shop, away from parents and classmates. He’s waiting for the day Josh demands they go clothes shopping as well. “The Game’s more about creating than destroying, although those do tend to go hand-in-hand in the UG.”

“…And what, exactly, does the Game create?”

“Character, kiddo.” And Imagination, but that’s classified.

Josh smacks their lips, unsatisfied. “I see.”

* * *

Hanekoma is finishing up serving another customer when Josh runs into the shop out of breath and exuberant.

“Five minutes,” they gasp to themself, looking at their small watch. It had been a gift from their mother.

“What’s that boss?”

“I need to practice,” they heave out between heavy breaths. Josh places their right hand on their knee and clutches at their chest with their left, standing in the café crookedly, entire body moving with forceful breathing.

“…Where’s your inhaler kiddo?”

Josh shakes their head.

“Don’t need it,” the child says, pausing to squeeze out air between every word.

“Josh…”

Hanekoma frowns, his brow creasing. They both wait out the attack without any more words.

Eventually, Josh flaps a hand in the air, ready to talk again.

“Maybe I should join the track team or…”

Hanekoma stares. “Didn’t think you were one for that stuff.”

“Run with me Mr. H” Josh declares, ignoring the comment. They stand up straight and roll their shoulders. “Let’s do it together. For the Game.”

* * *

Hanekoma worries.

* * *

The sequins glitter in the artificial light from the humming halogens overhead.

“It’s beautiful,” Josh murmurs, taken with the swish and flow of the skirt. “Thank you,” they say.

Hanekoma wears a proud grin the rest of the day. 

* * *

“I played on the tracks today,” the kid announces, eyes dancing between paintings.

“What’d you do that for, Boss?” Hanekoma asks conversationally over a brushstroke. He’s not surprised anymore, numb to the misadventures of this child, or so he thinks.

“There was a train coming,” J explains, “and I wanted to feel it.”

Hanekoma’s hands don’t shake as he paints, but it is a near thing.

* * *

The child is terrifying, sometimes. Those sharp eyes hide a hunger for life, for the feeling of being alive. Hanekoma has a feeling it burns at them, the insatiable need to feel more, a constant restlessness streaking through their mind.

The kid’s an adrenaline junkie, and were he mortal, Hanekoma is sure he’d have had three heart attacks by now.

Nothing Joshua does is ever enough.

* * *

They’ve got potential. Bright and intense, the kid is an explosion of Imagination and purpose.

However, the kid’s aspirations are unrefined and they lack patience. J has the desire to know without the restraint to go about learning. It’s something that will get better with time, and Hanekoma believes they’ll make a fine asset to the UG one day.

The angel paints them a postcard-sized picture, a small dove trailing light through a night sky. There is a command code in the curve of the neck and the splay of the pinions, to the effect of ‘calm the fuck down.’

J treasures it and keeps it under their pillow for weeks before they hang it on the wall of their room, next to the window.

* * *

“It’s broken isn’t it Mr H.” J seems frustrated. It’s eating away at their usually cheerful disposition. “Shibuya. I can fix it. I know I can. Just give me a chance. Help me,” they beg.

Hanekoma looks at them sideways over a steaming mug of coffee.

“…Maybe one day Boss, but not now.”

“But I’m meant to, I know I am. That’s why I can see it.”

J is trembling, searching. Something is wrong, and Hanekoma wonders if it’s his fault.

“I’m meant to.”

* * *

It’s too soon. Hanekoma finds the gun he keeps missing and wonders how the kid had snuck it out, let alone found it.

It’s too soon; neither of them were ready, and now all there is for him to do is wait.


End file.
